How I Accidentally Made a Two-Metre Satin Celebration of the Vulva

It started, as these things often do, with me thinking:

I could make that.

Which is a dangerous thought when you’re a burlesque performer with a sewing machine, a penchant for rhinestones and absolutely no adult supervision.

I wanted a boa.

Not a traditional feather boa. Something bigger, more decadent and a little unusual. A little more ‘Sasha’, if you will.

I had visions of yards of fabric, fluid movement and something that felt gloriously tactile. Less Vegas showgirl, more courtesan reclining on a chaise longue waiting for someone to peel her a grape.

Obviously.

I started wondering whether I could create the volume of a boa using gathered tubes of fabric attached to a central spine.

And thus began The Boa Project.

Pewter satin, cerise velvet and a LOT of gathering

I chose a beautiful pewter satin for the main body. It has exactly the quality I wanted: silvery without being SILVER, liquid-looking under light and just enough weight to make it feel sensual rather than floaty.

I cut six four-metre strips in deliberately different widths, stitched them into tubes, turned the whole bloody lot through and gathered each tube down to within an inch of its life.

Twenty-four metres of satin became two metres of gathered glory.

Yes, there were moments during this process when I questioned my life choices.

I then attached the six tubes to a hot-pink grosgrain ribbon spine, sewing them in gentle waves rather than regimented straight lines. Because who wants only straight in this game?

It worked.

Actually, it didn't just work. It looked exactly like the thing that had existed in my head.

Huge, decadent ripples of pewter satin. Heavy enough to have presence, soft enough to move beautifully and completely unlike any boa I could have bought.

This is one of the great joys of making costumes: occasionally reality actually matches the ridiculous vision in your brain.

And then, naturally, came the vulvas

I'd always planned flashes of pink peeking out amongst the silver.

I had some cerise crushed velvet left from another project, so I started experimenting with elongated, asymmetrical shapes that could emerge intermittently from the pewter.

After some experimentation involving kitchen towel prototypes - haute couture, darling - I landed on folded oval shapes, gathered slightly along their curved attachment edge.

…and the result was gorgeous.

Rather than sitting flat, the velvet bloomed between the satin folds. Sometimes obvious, sometimes almost hidden.

Very sensual.

Very organic.

And increasingly…

Very vulvic.

Now, the vulvic suggestion was very intentional. Those flashes of cerise velvet were always designed to resemble folds of labia nestled amongst the pewter.

What I hadn't necessarily anticipated was quite how enthusiastically the boa would embrace the assignment.

Because once those soft pink folds started peeking out between great ripples of satin, it felt increasingly obvious that I shouldn't stop at suggestion.

Why not take it all the way to the ends?

My work as a sex coach has always been about pleasure, bodies and removing the ridiculous shame we've attached to them. My burlesque work explores many of the same things through performance, sensuality and humour.

So why wouldn't my enormous handmade boa culminate in a beautifully sculpted vulva at either end?

Exactly.

Making for love rather than a deadline

The thing I've loved most about this project, though, isn't actually the finished object.

It's the way I've made it.

Most costume projects have a date attached.

A debut. A performance. A photoshoot. A terrifying moment on the calendar that means eventually you have to stop pondering whether something needs another 700 rhinestones and declare it FINISHED.

This boa doesn't.

I've been making it simply because I wanted to.

And without a deadline, I've noticed something interesting: I've made fewer mistakes.

I've tested things before committing.

I've pinned, stared, wandered off, come back and changed my mind. point all of which makes for very uninteresting content which is why I find myself with very little work-in-progress footage.

I've allowed the materials to tell me what they want to do rather than forcing them to comply with a drawing I made three weeks earlier.

There weren't any major catastrophes, and yes, I celebrate my master seamstressing. I realise I am tempting the costume gods by putting that sentence in writing.

But perhaps creativity benefits from having some room to breathe.

Perhaps not everything needs to become content, income, a product or a finished thing by Friday.

Sometimes making something gloriously unnecessary purely because the idea delights you is reason enough.

“Each end became a sculptural velvet vulva”

And now she’s finished

Which, unexpectedly, makes me a little bit sad.

I’ve been making this ridiculous, glorious thing for months. No deadline. No producer waiting for it. No performance date circled furiously on the calendar. Just an idea I couldn’t get out of my head, several metres of pewter satin, shocking pink velvet, a sewing machine, an alarming quantity of hand stitching and, eventually, two beautifully hooded silver clitorises.

I’ve loved making her.

And perhaps that’s actually the point.

Because its first proper outing will be at Courtesan Energy: Seduce Yourself First, my new workshop in September - and I can’t think of a more appropriate place for it.

The whole idea behind Seduce Yourself First is that pleasure doesn’t have to be productive. Beauty doesn’t need to be for somebody else. Sensuality isn’t something we perform only when somebody is watching.

Sometimes you follow the thing that makes your eyes light up simply because you fucking want to.

I didn't make this boa because I needed it.

I made it because somewhere in my head I could already see two metres of extravagant pewter ruffles, flashes of hot pink velvet and, apparently, a vulva at either end.

And then I gave myself the time to make the thing I could see.

Perhaps that’s Courtesan Energy in practice.

Although I’m fairly sure the historical courtesans had other people to do the hand sewing.

So what now?

Well, first I'm going to be slightly sad that I've finished making it.

And then I'm going to play with it.

I'm going to stroke it. Wrap myself in it. Flick it around. Let those flashes of cerise appear and disappear amongst the silver. Find out how it moves, what it wants to do and, eventually, how I want to perform with it.

And at some point, when the opportunity presents itself, I fully intend to turn to an unsuspecting audience member…

…and flash them my boa's vulva.

And so I hereby dub thee... Sheela.

Because sometimes art should be meaningful.

Sometimes it should be beautiful.

And sometimes all you need is the idea of a shimmering silver clitoris.

Sheela - a little nod to the Sheela na gig, those gloriously unapologetic medieval vulva-flashers warding off evil spirits. Because apparently even my boa requires historical feminine symbolism. And a name. Obviously.

PS - More images and a maybe a cheeky lil' video coming soon...

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